Sean Miller will be the Pac-12's coach of the year, while Gabe York will be the leading scorer of the league champion Wildcats in 2015-16 -- according to the results of a statistical projection system run by Sports Illustrated.
SI's predictions for the conference roughly equaled the Pac-12's official media poll, with UA first at 13-5, Cal and Utah in a second-place tie at 12-6 and Oregon fourth at 11-7.
Interestingly, SI's system popped up with York as the Wildcats' leading scorer, with 12.3 points per game, while Kaleb Tarczewski was UA's only other double-digit scorer (11.6). Allonzo Trier was projected to be only UA's sixth leading scorer with 8.5 points on average.
The top seven players it projected:
People are also reading…
York 12.3 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 1.8 apg
Tarczewski 11.6 ppg 6.8 rpg
Parker Jackson-Cartwright 9.8 ppg, 3.6 rpg, 4.7 apg
Ryan Anderson 9.2 ppg, 5.2 rpg
Ray Smith 9.1 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 1.2 apg
Trier 8.5 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 1.5 apg
Mark Tollefsen 7.3 ppg, 3.5 rpg, 1.0 apg
Mitch Lightfoot remains expected to choose Kansas when he makes his announcement on Saturday at 1 p.m.
No Arizona players made Evan Daniels' Scout.com list of the top 15 impact freshmen in college basketball this season, though Cal had Jaylen Brown at No. 3 and Ivan Rabb at No. 9. Former UA target Stephen Zimmerman of UNLV is No. 9.
Colorado's Dom Collier is trying to play without pressure as a sophomore this season.
Arizona released a video look behind the scenes at the Red Blue Game last weekend (video attached above and to the right). In it, there's a glimpse of Sean Miller's "pre-game" speech as well as a look at the between-the-legs dunk that won Mark Tollefsen the dunk contest title.
ICYMI, had an interesting conversation with Lauri Markkanen's father, Pekka, who said his son simply found the best opportunity was at Arizona.
